The feast approaches, and the kitchen is sparkling with sugar: preserved plums, silver dragées, candied clementines and crystallised ginger. There're three types of baking sugar, dried vine fruits, a half-bottle of brandy and fudge-scented golden icing sugar. And if you can't eat a crumb of icing-encrusted cake at Christmas, then when can you?

And so, it's time to make The Cake again. Actually, I'm late this year, but so many of you have been asking for a recipe for a small cake, a miniature cake, even a Christmas cake for four, that I have spent the last week or more tweaking my recipes and timings. Many want a less dense version or one without cherries. There was even a request for a low-calorie one. (Fat chance.)

The upshot of all this has been a quietly pleasurable week - all wooden spoons and Radio 4 - and a kitchen counter that twinkles under the spotlights, where the air itself tastes as sweet as a sugar mouse and a house that smells permanently of warm, rich fruitcake. Early recipes for Christmas cake - it has only been enjoyed in its present form since Victorian times - are heavy with currants, raisins and occasionally prunes. Densely mysterious, they are often black enough to be mistaken for a plum pudding, and sometimes as moist. This year I have used some of the more contemporary dried fruits, lighter in colour and with a tartness to them: dried cherries, blueberries, green and gold sultanas, cranberries and pluots. You may not have come across a pluot. They are a cross between a plum and an apricot and make an interesting addition to a fruitcake. They have the sweetness of a prune, but a welcome nip of sharpness, too. They look faintly rude, like the back end of a bulldog. The colour, a sort of dark amber-pink, looks good in a cake. If you can't find them, up the apricot quota.

The tradition of soaking your fruits in brandy is a wise one. Plumped-up fruits will keep your cake juicy. I try to remember to let them steep overnight. If I forget, then four hours or so before baking is usually time enough.

Dark sugars are what keep the crumb of the cake moist. Demerara, molasses and the muscovado sisters - dark and light - are the ones to use rather than caster. This year I have brought in more light muscovado than dark, which means the flavour is more butterscotch than black treacle.

Sweet spices are essential. Not so much in terms of flavour, but for the fact that they represent the gifts brought by the three wise men - cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg being accessible stand-ins for gold, frankincense and myrrh. Christmas cooking is heavy with tradition and all the more interesting for it.

I no longer use much white icing sugar. My icing has for some time been made with unrefined icing sugar, which has the colour of antique linen. It is not as Christmasy, but the slight butterscotch note appeals in other ways, so I forgo the snowy peaks.

Small cakes have to be watched carefully if they are not to be dry; a few minutes either way and a large cake is unlikely to come to grief. Overcook a small cake and you have a miserably little thing on your hands. You can always juice a cake up a bit by force-feeding it with brandy through holes pierced in its underside, but it won't rescue a cake that has been overcooked.

The Christmas cake is constantly evolving, and has come a long way since someone first added butter and wheat flour to the sloppy oatmeal and dried fruit porridge (a sort of festive muesli) with which Christians had long celebrated. And a lot of people seem to want a cake that isn't so large it will last till February. It is worth a thought that the larger you keep the fruit, the juicier the cake will be, but generous lumps of fruit also mean your cake will crumble when you slice it. I rather like the sweet rubble effect of a collapsed cake, but those who hanker after slicing perfection may like to cut their fruit and nuts up no bigger than a raisin.

A small, rich fruitcake

This quantity will make a deep 11cm square cake or 2 small loaf tins 13cm x 6cm. (I hope you don't mind if I mention that cake tins are traditionally measured across the base.)

The night before, if you remember, empty the dried fruits into a bowl, finely chopping the larger fruits as you go, pour over the brandy, then add the zest and juice of the orange. Tumble the fruits in the liquid - it won't cover them - and set aside. Give them another stir in the morning.

To make the cake, set the oven at 160C/ gas mark 3. Put the baking shelf in the lower half of the oven. Beat the butter and sugars till fluffy, using an electric mixer. Take no shortcuts here: the mixture should be latté coloured and the texture of soft ice cream.

Meanwhile, line the cake tin twice with baking paper. The paper should come at least 5cm above the edge of the tin. This seems extravagant but helps the cake not to overcook on the bottom.

Break the eggs into a small bowl and mix thoroughly, adding them, a little at a time, to the fully creamed butter and sugar. If the mixture curdles slightly, and it probably will, then mix in 1 tbsp or two of the flour. Add the dried fruits, ground almonds and whole hazelnuts.

To the flour, add the baking powder and spices and mix well, then add it, a heaped tablespoon at a time, to the cake mixture. Spoon into the lined cake tin, then bake for one hour without opening the door. (This is where I put the timer on.) Turn the temperature down to 150C/gas mark 2 and let the cake continue cooking for a further 1½ hours. If it appears to be browning a little too quickly, place a piece of paper or foil over the top. If you're baking with two little loaf tins, then cut the cooking time by 30 minutes.

Remove the cake from the heat and let it cool in its tin. When the cake is cold, wrap it, still in its paper, in foil or cling-film and leave in a cool place. It is a good idea to feed it with brandy every week till you ice it. Unwrap the foil and peel back the paper, then pierce the underside of the cake with a metal skewer or knitting needle several times, then spoon over a little brandy. It will soon disappear into the cake. Wrap it up and set it aside for another week.

To cover an 11cm cake you will need about 400g almond paste and icing made with 2 egg whites and about 500g icing sugar.

Whisk or fork the egg whites lightly, just enough to break them up and give a faint head of bubbles. Sift in the icing sugar and mix to a smooth paste thick enough to spread. It will seem too thick at first, but keep going. Add a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice or flower water. Scoop the icing out over the almond paste, smooth it out and decorate as you wish.nigel.slater@observer.co.uk

• This article was amended on Monday December 8 2008. In the recipe above we originally forgot to add the dried fruit to our cake mix. This has been changed.